Leadwerks Engine 2.4 and pureLIGHT
Community Forums/Showcase/Leadwerks Engine 2.4 and pureLIGHT
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| Leadwerks Engine 2.4 is now available, featuring integration with pureLIGHT lightmapping. Leadwerks deferred dynamic lighting combines with pureLIGHT global illumination lightmaps to deliver the most advanced real-time lighting in the world. Leadwerks Engine 2.4 also supports dynamic colored shadows for stained glass effects. Particles can cast translucent shadows that combine with solid shadows, and volumetric clouds can now cast real shadows on the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfCoXVLSsIE |
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| very nice, i would like to see a fire with the smoke, the balls demo looked very photorealistic, and the windows (and frames) casting shadows in the room looked great |
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| can you do a space demo with it, maybe planets moving around and asteroids casting shadows on a planet etc. That would be cool definitely would be interested in that. |
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| The lighting didn't do anything for me. It's just sort of washed out for the most part. The SSDO on the balls looked downright bizarre. Virtually white balls are shaded pure black by their mere proximity to another ball. Perhaps these effects are just overdone for the sake of showing them off, but if so, the heavy-handedness put me off. The volumetric particle shadows were very nice though. |
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| Any screens for people who can't watch movies because it's too filesize heavy from where they are right now? |
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| looks great Josh.... but your way too mellow LOL Stir excitement with some flashy stuff already, if it can that is ;) |
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| I thought it was a nice change from the grimy industrial stuff, and the white abstract appearance is good for showing lighting. |
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| As Josh doesn't provide some screens, i just had a look at the ones from the pureLIGHT product page and comparing those to the Beast lightmapper included in Unity 3, it looks a bit like a hobby product but maybe they are just not this good in demoing their own software. Anyway, i guess better this than nothing. It was interesting to see that they offer their lightmapper for Torque and Unity as well, although with Beast beeing provided in Unity, also in the Indie version, i really can't see someone buying it there. http://www.purelighttech.com/quality.htm pureLIGHT http://www.illuminatelabs.com/gallery Beast I also would dislike having to use an external editor beside of the modeller and/or the 3d engine. Do they plan to port their software to OSX someday? I wonder what Shiva will come up with... |
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| Nice video, I couldn't notice where the real-time and baked stuff stood out from one another; everything looked homogenous. |
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| Awesome, Josh! What typical framerates do you get? |
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| ..im testing it now with VRay now..it should work .. |
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| It wouldn't be an LE thread without taumel showing up to advertise Unity. You sound like a guerilla marketer. Here's how it works. Deferred dynamic lighting:  Indirect lighting. This is the part pureLIGHT calculates:  The combined result:  |
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| ... |
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| @JoshK And again you got it wrong but thanks for posting some screens, just comparing it to the results i can get out of Modo or Beast in Unity directly. A few questions if you don't mind: This is a windows external editor only solution, right? So if you plan to expand to OSX with 3.0 will pureLIGHT be integrated into LE or will they offer a OSX editor then as well? How is the lightmap information beeing stored? Do you need to apply the lightmapping shader part on your own then or is this exported by the editor for the common shaders? |
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| personaly i think the the leadwerks render engine is the best @ moment. Ok the farcry 2 engine is a little bit better, but hey.. therefore the leadwerk engine is buyable! With this factor the engine is not beatable @ moment. :) |
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| Hell the rendering is realtime and looks amazing, yeah FarCry 2 is brilliant but it costs for those results. LE is affordable and you get almost as good results. If ya want realtime rendering and amazing graphics that nobody can match leave the computer desk, go outside and look around ROFL |
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| Josh, Im almost ready to buy your engine.. when's the next blitz user sale ! ? :) |
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| The pureLIGHT for Leadwerks page is now available: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/products/_/tools/purelight-for-leadwerks-r6 |
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| It wouldn't be an LE thread without taumel showing up to advertise Unity. When you buy a $1200-$1500 engine and can't actually use it, there is nothing left to do but post in threads of $200 engines saying how inferior they are. |
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| So what Josh is saying is that this is a tad better than Giles? I find that hard to believe - nothing is better than Giles! |
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| Gile[s] is just one of handy options..as i can see, any lightmapper can be used, long as it can export format recognized by LE converter tools..good thing about whole idea is that now, people who use to require low end support, should be okay since no dynamic light is required for lightmapped stuff, so it can run quite fast on old hardware.. |
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| I actually contacted the author of Giles a while ago, but he didn't respond, and there is no option in giles to do indirect lighting only. Lots of people on my forum were requesting pureLIGHT. Their workflow is pretty nice, because you can watch the lightmapper as it works, and pause it at any time, or only update part of the scene. So we went with pureLIGHT. |
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| @GaryY Without knowing your reasons, i think you still haven't understood the whole 3d discussion and Josh seems to be kind of thin skinned as well. I have the feeling that there wouldn't be any problems if we were talking about some painting programs but as it's about 3d engines everytime you draw a comparison to alternative products, which some of us also use, and which is valid as there exist many options but none of them are perfect for every purpose, it seems to get the same persons annoyed. Why you draw the conclusion that i cant use Unity will most probably remain your very own secret. I doubt that a closed discussion like Josh and a couple of other users like you seem to prefer, would have any positive impact in the long run, as it simply ignores the market's reality and you will have to deal with it anyway. Why LE should be treated in a special way here is also beyond me, more after the way it treats BlitzMax and this is not a LE forum. For the prices you stated, LE has increased to $250, which puts it into the same region as Shiva now without valuing any differences of what you get for your money then. I'm curious what price and featureset LE will end up with in V3 with maybe adding some more middleware. |
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| @taumel, yes, I made a typo, LE is $250 and it sucks monkey butt, Unity is $1200-$1500 and it is the greatest product in existence, thank you for the reminder. |
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| I would say it's less about a typo and more about that you somehow seem to prefer a less objective way of investigating things. Btw the way i understand the pricing, the whole package (LE plus pureLIGHT) currently sums up like this: Leadwerks $250 + pureLight for Leadwerks $350 which results into $600 (don't ask me about the taxes). |
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| No, as I said before. I am a programmer, as a programmer I never expect a product to conform to my needs. It really has nothing to do with being a programmer or programming tools. It has to do with being an adult and it applies to any type of product you might buy in your life. You buy the product that meets your needs, you do not buy a product that does not meet your needs and then expect it to conform to your needs. Btw the way i understand the pricing, the whole package LE plus pureLIGHT, sums up like this: Leadwerks $250 + pureLight for Leadwerks $350 which sums up to $600. So now, you can't use LE unless you also buy and use pureLIGHT?If LE doesn't meet your needs, buy and use an engine that does. There are literally hundreds to choose from. Spare me the silly argument that they may not work well with BM as that is clearly not a prerequisite for you since you are continually praising Unity. |
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| As we probably won't agree with each other and i only would repeat myself regarding that you're missing important points in the discussion, i suggest we just let it be. I continue with the way i am seeing things and you just keep on doing it the adult like way. |
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| Taumel, why don't you start a thread about shiva or unity, then you can talk about them all you want? |
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| Josh, why are you so afraid if devs communicate their experiences made with several tools, talk about it, compare features and ask questions regarding your product? Btw are the $350 for Leadwerk's pureLIGHT an introductional price and will it ramp up to $500 (wondering because of the difference to the Torque and Unity options) or is this the permanent price? |
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| The $350 is the introductory price for the first month. I don't make any money or have any control of the price of this tool. It's the same as the torque and unity versions. You spam every leadwerks thread with advertisements, but never start your own threads to talk about the relative merits of different products. You are transparent. Why don't you start a thread about shiva or something, and I'll make every other reply about why I think Leadwerks is better? |
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| I never said that you would make any money out of it, i just was curious about the price difference. Moreover the way this was communicated, i wouldn't be surprised if some people thought they would get pureLight with the purchase of LE already. Well, it seems that i'm not this transparent because at least you don't seem to understand the intention of an open discussion. Feel free to post your opinions of why and where LE is better than some of the alternatives. I would be interested to read your point of views if they are more reasonable than your imputations. |
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| Moreover the way this was communicated, i wouldn't be surprised if some people thought they would get pureLight with the purchase of LE already. Perhaps if you improve your vocabulary you would realize the difference between: "featuring integration with pureLIGHT lightmapping." and "includes pureLIGHT lightmapping" I have to agree with JoshK... you seem to be all about leadwerks bashing since you do so in every single thread and don't start any threads of your own on the topic as he mentioned. Personally, I think JoshK is being smart about the price at this point in its evolution and I don't recall him every coming off with false or misleading statements about its capabilities. |
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| It doesn't need to improve my vocabulary but i know some people who thought this way and if i'm honest i think they have a valid point and things like this could be described in a more obvious way right from the start. Actually it's not this hard to make things clear if you really want to: This is LE, it features blablabla (old and new) and costs qqq. If you want this certain feature, then it costs extra aaa. Please note that this is a preorder discount which is valid until www. Afterwards the price will be sss. As for the rest, you're entitled to your opinion. |
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| The people you know who thought that way obviously need to read more carefully as well. You sound like the kind of person that ends up buying time-share vacations with their cockamamie points systems that translate into a rip-off later and then complain that the company was not crystal clear in their presentation of their product. Perhaps JoshK should also state that "you must learn to read properly before reviewing his web posts." "Integration" is clearly not "included" how could you mistake that! |
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| Maybe Josh should just provide all the information needed to understand it properly, which btw the product page is still lacking, also for those who don't read it up in the forum, where LE users were asking the same questions. Closed, not readable threads/forums remind me of the shady moves Shiva once did... |
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| Well, it seems that i'm not this transparent because at least you don't seem to understand the intention of an open discussion. Feel free to post your opinions of why and where LE is better than some of the alternatives. The irony is you are asking Josh to do something you are incapable of doing. You keep saying how LE is worse than other products and how other products are better, and how Josh doesn't do something right in LE. But every time I ask you to explain yourself and give an example or details on what you think is wrong or what could be done better, you are not able to articulate your opinion even if it is just a simple list of pros and cons.If LE doesn't meet your needs, don't use it. Don't expect Josh to cripple his product (and hence his income) by changing to your whims. I doubt Josh is in a position to lose his entire userbase just to make a couple of potential customers happy who only want to make legacy 3D games. |
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| Btw the way i understand the pricing, the whole package LE plus pureLIGHT, sums up like this: Leadwerks $250 + pureLight for Leadwerks $350 which sums up to $600. Well, it depends on your needs. You can still use a lightmapper of your choice (for example, I don't feel the need for PureLight since Lightwave already does a great job for my assets). It's just a well known additional tool for the ones who prefer this workflow. For the prices you stated, LE has increased to $250, which puts it into the same region as Shiva now without valuing any differences of what you get for your money then. To be honest, the learning edition of Shiva is free and after trying it it was obvious that while the integrated editor is nice, the 3D engine is not at all comparable to LE (slower and far less advanced). At the moment, Unity and Shiva have a better integrated environment than LE. Unity and Shiva have browser and cross platform compatibility which are absent in LE. Shiva has wider support for mobile devices and consoles but falls short on the graphical engine. LE on the other hand is the most graphically advanced engine of the three regarding real-time lighting, terrains and vegetation/instancing. These engines have clearly focused on different priorities, and after pointing the clear shortcomings of each there isn't much comparison to be done. Probably the only one which could be compared is Torque, since they are focusing on cutting edge graphical solutions too (the others don't even have deferred shading) and also support for mobile devices, but Unity? Different targets, different highlights. |
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| the others don't even have deferred shading I don't know about Shiva, but Unity most certainly does have deferred shading. "Integration" is clearly not "included" how could you mistake that! Sorry, Sir, I'll sign up for the reading lessons right away, because I also felt that the language used was leading me to believe something that turned out not to be true. I won't say that I didn't suspect from the beginning, but I did think I was being smokescreened with very careful word use. You sound like the kind of person that ends up buying time-share vacations with their cockamamie points systems that translate into a rip-off later and then complain that the company was not crystal clear in their presentation of their product. Ah, now I do very much agree with this. I definitely felt that the "Purelight integration" was being marketed as a time-share vacation would be marketed. Good call. |
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| "Integration" is clearly not "included" how could you mistake that! That is the second time they have been mentioned. Who the hell is "Integration" and what have they got to do with "included"? |
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| @GaryV I don't think there is any irony at all. Obviously i have my point of views but if Josh wants to share this thoughts, and as i said if they are reasonable, then i would be interested in hearing them. @Doiron Btw i haven't googled for this but do there exist some speed tests between raytracers and lightmapping engines, best also on a comparable and reasonable quality level? I think where a lightmapper really can win, is when it comes to integration like in, there is the evil tool again, Unity, although they still have to sort out certain issues occuring in the Beta. There does exist a free version of Shiva but honestly that's not the one you really want, i mean you can't publish for any platform with it, so Advanced is what you normally want. I'm kind of curious about of V2 and how much more mature it will be on all those platforms. Unity offers three rendering paths: deferred lightning, forward rendering and vertex lit, as a camera property, although the docs haven't been update yet, at least in the version i once tried to look it up. |
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| I don't know about Shiva, but Unity most certainly does have deferred shading. Edit: I stand corrected if it was added recently (the 'room of shadows' demo looks like it could be it for the sun light). The website still talks about low-end solutions only: http://unity3d.com/unity/features/shadow-and-light In any case, the rendering technology is still not on par with LE and I think that the focus of Unity developers is on the all-in-one solution at the moment. I still think that the only comparison, if any, can be made between Torque and LE: both offer advanced rendering techniques (tested for performance with hundreds of lights and complex environments), and good world editing tools. And both have their shortcomings and advantages: Torque 3D compensates good support with a steep learning curve whereas LE is more accessible, one has low end support (since it's born earlier and has a bigger team) and the other hasn't, and LE still has the edge on terrains and vegetation/instancing/billboarding (any scenery made so far in the Torque showcase is not as impressive, even though they have hell of a lot of commercial products with fine assets done with it, and that's the case with Unity and Shiva too). There does exist a free version of Shiva but honestly that's not the one you really want The rendering features are the same though, so it's fine for benchmarking and testing. Btw i haven't googled for this but do there exist some speed tests between raytracers and lightmapping engines, best also on a comparable and reasonable quality level? I think where a lightmapper really can win, is when it comes to integration like in, there is the evil tool again, Unity, although they still have to sort out certain issues occuring in the Beta. Lightwave is notoriously one of the fastest rendering engines on the market, while at the same time it's scientifically accurate, and that's why it's widely used in television where you don't really have much time. But of course here time isn't of the essence, if not for tweaking, since you are baking a map for the final version of a game, and there are many (often costly) renderers... to name an outrageous one everyone has read about Pixar's Renderman. :) It's all a matter of workflow... any studio makes it's own chain of tools (some 3d modellers can be used as game editing tools far beyond the ones provided with game engines), but it's always nice to see engine developers integrating one in the toolset for people who are just exploring the subject or need the job done fast: renderers and modellers are usually very complex for a newcomer, while an integrated tool specifically designed for a game engine with realtime lights really straightens the job. |
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| Turning someone's showcase into an engine comparison thread is bad form, IMO. This is really just a place for people to say 'here's what I made' and people to ask questions about it. |
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| Sadly he's not always interested in answering questions regarding his product... @Doiron Unity is also about supporting many platforms and deferred lightning simply isn't what you want and can do on mobiles, more if you care about aspects like performance and battery life, that's what vertex lit is for. Secondly if you don't take advantage of the benefits of deferred lightning, it's also slower than forward rendering, that's what this option is for and if you want/have/need deferred lightning it is in there now for the first time. The shadow room demo is pretty old and has nothing to do with deferred lightning but if you're interested in, they have some neat material on their site - a.o. the alley scene on the frontpage for Unity3. Running something in the editor isn't as fast as a fullscreen standalone for example and i wasn't talking only about the rendering engine, so Shiva Free, dunno, isn't such a convincing product in my opinion but hey, afterall it's free. Do you know how Lightwave compares to Modo regarding the rendering speed? I think i have only used Lightwave in an below amateurish way back on the Amiga. |
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| the 3D engine is not at all comparable to LE (slower and far less advanced). Doiron, actually his main complaint "seems" to be LE is too advanced. Sadly he's not always interested in answering questions regarding his product... Sadly, you have never asked a question, all you do is put LE down and never explain any of the reasons or logic behind your comments. |
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| I'm sure if you take the time to look through this thread, you'll be able to find some. |
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| ..guys, you shouldnt argue about such things..lets be just, if nothing else, happy to see some of our Blitz friends, made some progress in whatever it is, in this case LE..sure..there are some things LE doesnt have or doesnt do on best way, but its here, and it does nicely what it says with nice tool we all here love, called Bmax..so, i would just encourage him to keep going, and eventually all missing features, whatever they are, will be covered nicely..the truth is that LE is one of the best supported 3D solutions available for Bmax, and thats something good enough to makes us all happy..so lets bring some constructive criticism, if any, rather than prooving who said what and why..no point really..peaceeeee :) |
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| Unity is also about supporting many platforms and deferred lightning simply isn't what you want and can do on mobiles, more if you care about aspects like performance and battery life, that's what vertex lit is for. Secondly if you don't take advantage of the benefits of deferred lightning, it's also slower than forward rendering, that's what this option is for and if you want/have/need deferred lightning it is in there now for the first time. You see, that's my point: you have demonstrated yourself that the engines have different targets. After clearing that, it makes no sense comparing them. I could understand if the developers always promised certain features, but Josh has always been pretty honest about low-end support. It's up to us to choose what suits best our needs. If he'll ever do a mobile/low-end version of the engine, then you could compare them. The shadow room demo is pretty old and has nothing to do with deferred lightning but if you're interested in, they have some neat material on their site - a.o. the alley scene on the frontpage for Unity3. Unity 3 is not out yet. By then, LE could have a better integrated environment, and that applies to every engine. The future and roadmaps are interesting but we can only comment (and test/benchmark/work with) the present. |
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| Naughty Alien, I couldn't say it better! I fully agree. |
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| @Naughty Alien :O) @Dorion I don't see your point as a) LE also will target more platforms in the future and b) it still would be great having a really good 3D engine for BlitzMax. This could is rather unrealistic, expecting significant enhancements in LE editor by the time Unity3 will be out, ... |
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| Who moderates this forum? |
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| Who moderates this forum? lol! [yodavoice] the urge delete other peoples posts is strong with this one.. [/yodavoice] |
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| I don't see your point as a) LE also will target more platforms in the future and b) it still would be great having a really good 3D engine for BlitzMax. So talk about it in the future. You're complaining that a hypotethic future version will not work well on mobiles because this engine, which definitely has nothing to do with mobiles, uses advanced rendering techniques which would never work on a mobile? I give up. This is a very good 3D engine, it's just intended for a kind of use different from what you need. If you need low-end rendering engines there are lots of alternatives, starting from MiniB3D. In my opinion, it's very hard to adapt a next gen game to run on low-end hardware, and it's never done from a coding perspective only: you practically have to rework all the assets, or it won't never look any good... who has the resources is not doing it (do you see a low-end version of Crysis or GTA IV or Guitar Hero World Tour or Lost Planet included in the game?), and I find it even more unpractical for indies who don't have dedicated teams. If you think that your project needs to target low-end computers because of the userbase it's intended to, you have to make a reasonable choice from the start by losing in cutting edge graphics: you can't have the best of both worlds. If you try to, you'll notice it's like converting the assets for a XBox360 game to the PS2: it's possible, but it takes a lot of work. P.S. I myself on a MiniB3D thread asked if anyone knew well supported cross platform engines compatible with onboard graphic adapters, but I'm certainly not asking Josh to adapt his engine to such needs since it's clearly in a different league. |
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| Moderation appears to be hap-hazard or infrequent... but I don't imagine anyone is being paid for it. I was going to request being a moderator until I realized that they run the boards a lot more "slack" than I would so it would be pointless... I'd probably get in shit from the other moderators for being faster on the ban button than them :) |
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| @Doiron Dunno if you have really understood what has been written so far because i'm kind of confused by the way you are arguing... Your first point doesn't make any sense to me. When evaluating a technology you always look at the past, the present and the future. Where is this tool/developer coming from? What is it able to do now? What could i expect from it in the future? The more you have to plan into the future, the bigger a project is, if you're having some projects which iterate, ... the more relevant such aspects get. I'm fine with that you seem to enjoy the engine but in my opinion and considering certain things Josh said on his own, the current engine simply is limitating itself because it doesn't run on popular platforms and that's what most probably you'll get with future versions of LE. And if one of this platforms involves mobile devices then he also needs a less demanding alternative renderpath. Others have done this before in quite some engines, one of them is Unity, so i don't see the big deal with it. I also can't agree about this simplified black/white mantra that if you need it complex, use LE. If you need it simple, then use miniB3D as this keeps so many possible fields of applications in between left out. I also think the benefits of a tool which lets you produce and export your content for different platforms are more than obvious. You could use the same tool for a high end, mid range and low end targeting projects, may these be different ones or even the same one. You can implement proper screws, reuse code and it certainly is less work rearranging the things which have to be changed in such an environment, as long as the tool isn't limiting you. |
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| but I'm certainly not asking Josh to adapt his engine to such needs since it's clearly in a different league. Why not? I can't believe Josh has the audacity to think he has the right to release an engine that does not support all known systems. The fact that LE won't run on DOS shows how bad LE really is. Since Josh refuses to implement DOS support even though I have asked him to many times, this shows the lack of respect Josh has for his users. He is a con artist for not implementing the features I demand! LE sucks because it is intentionally ignoring all of the DOS users out there and not supporting them.100% joking of course. But try as I might to see taumel's point of view, the script kiddie mentality just doesn't make sense to me. |
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| Taumel, LE isn't Unity. That's 100% clear to us now. Considering Unity is the greatest FOR YOU, I understand that you have no interest in LE, unless of course Josh rewrites it to be Unity and changes the name to Unity. We get it. This thread needs a purge, my comments included. |
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| I'm not sure to which degree the internet is part of reason for a certain lack in the art of converstaion but some people somehow seem to prefer getting upset if you're discussing something they like in an objective way. The only importance then seems to be to defend whatever they like, no matter if the things they say match with the reality or fit as an argument to what you've said before. |
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| I'm not sure to which degree the internet is part of reason for a certain lack in the art of converstaion but some people somehow seem to prefer getting upset if you're discussing something they like in an objective way. Its where you are discussing it and how you discuss it. It's about appropriateness. Leave LE's SHOWCASE thread alone and start your own thread about comparing 3D engines that use light-mappers or something.. no one would care about that but instead you choose to wait for him to post and then hijack his thread. You say you are objective but your not - unless your using objective c with unity perhaps. Your attacking his threads. Start your own and see how you fair as the originator. |
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| What Skully said. Having this discussion in a showcase is trolling, as you are well aware. I'm all for an "anything goes" comparison thread, but not here. You are becoming the resident Rick James. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yLJ5NHARMk&feature=related |
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| I don't think it is the wrong thread were a product has been showcased to discuss it and its technical abilities as well as talk about relevant alternatives but after what he wrote in this thread i can imagine that he, and his fellows, would prefer more a broadcast medium, more hurrays and less questions & discussions but well, he at least can do whatever he wants on his site. Btw his site also was the source for some questions arising in this thread. Maybe it would help also disabling the comment functionality in his press releases in the future or he should just move such topics into the private section as well. |
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| Dunno if you have really understood what has been written so far because i'm kind of confused by the way you are arguing... I didn't want to go there, and that's why I avoid these threads, but since *you* are confused... Your first point doesn't make any sense to me. When evaluating a technology you always look at the past, the present and the future. Where is this tool/developer coming from? What is it able to do now? What could i expect from it in the future? I prefer to talk about the present but... Ok, let's talk about the future then: As Josh doesn't provide some screens, i just had a look at the ones from the pureLIGHT product page and comparing those to the Beast lightmapper included in Unity 3 The shadow room demo is pretty old and has nothing to do with deferred lightning but if you're interested in, they have some neat material on their site - a.o. the alley scene on the frontpage for Unity3. When it's about Unity, the future is as good as delivered, and it doesn't matter that the present is not there yet. This could is rather unrealistic, expecting significant enhancements in LE editor by the time Unity3 will be out "Unity is also about supporting many platforms and deferred lightning simply isn't what you want and can do on mobiles" followed by "I don't see your point as a) LE also will target more platforms in the future" When it comes to other engines' future, you're skeptical at best. Basically, your approach is that Unity will be there eventually about what currently gives LE the edge, and LE will not ever make advancements about the aspects Unity is already good at. And this could or couldn't be true, as no one has a magic wand. What you can do right now counts when you buy a product (how you can use or value what's not there yet?). As I said earlier, you could find more suitable engines for a comparison instead of looking at apples and oranges. I don't think it is the wrong thread were a product has been showcased to discuss it and its technical abilities as well as talk about relevant alternatives but after what he wrote in this thread i can imagine that he, and his fellows, I would like to point out that I'm a 'fellow' who other than LE owns Xors3D, all Blitz products except B3D SDK, Torque products, other lightmappers, and a bunch of other sometimes even costly stuff useful for graphics and development (in fact, I don't need PureLight, but many could). Also installed are Shiva Learning and Unity 2.6 and Visual Studio 2005 + XNA and Unreal SDK. I thought I should clear that before you start pointing fingers, that is. Personally I would love a great integrated environment, but after some years I started to prefer pure coding and a good modeller/layout (which comes pretty near) 'cause of the workarounds needed around scripting, but about that at the moment I'm looking at Unreal SDK as a learning tool. |
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| Watched the demo on youtube. Looks pretty. Something about the first part with the room with the balls and the stairs looks kind of washed out...yes it looked good, but it looked odd as well. Admittedly I didn't have sound so don't know if this was explained in the youtube video. Not sure what I'd try to make if I bought this. Serious question for Josh - is it possible to use this with blitzplus? I'm not likely to learn C(regular, # or ++) or Blitzmax any time soon but wondered if it would integrate into blitzplus which can call dlls? |
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| @Doiron Lots of confusion, at least i have problems following your argumentation. I think i would run into serious trouble if i only would evaluate and choose technology on a present level but it might work out if you're doing it for the hobby. Nope, i for sure don't think everything is fine in Unity but compared to quite some other engines, it's better in a number of aspects. I could name more but i think it's more important what you're doing with them instead of placing them in a row. ;O) Actually you can use the editor and/or code in Unity but to be honest for a lot of projects it makes sense using the editor. Problem is that the Unity projects often tend to explode in filesize compared to something you keep in pure code but they offer a lot of comfort and fast accessible flexibility. Anyway i sometimes have my coding mood and as i really like BlitzMax, i would love to seeing a good 3d engine for it as well... |
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| I think i would run into serious trouble if i only would evaluate and choose technology on a present level but it might work out if you're doing it for the hobby. I think on a professional level I would run into serious troubles if I choose a product based on the roadmap for requirements I need for completion (what I tell the client, to wait for an update?). Calling me a hobbyist because of that is a cheap personal attack, really. Also, there are very good developers and programmers among hobbyists (which these boards are full), and trying to have the best of a discussion by elevating yourself from the mass is even cheaper. Anyway, last post in here on the subject, as I'm contributing in derailing the topic. |
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| ..how about some hugs guys, aaa? :) |
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| @Doiron Nope, you can misinterpret it as an insult but it wasn't meant this way, it's just reality in the fields i'm working in... @Naughty Alien ;O) |
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| Aww, last one, really... so you actually work with products which are not out yet? do you plan ahead for *necessary* features when developing? it's impossible for short-term deadlines (obviously), and dangerous with long-term ones (a blatant example is Too Human and their lawsuit to Epic). |
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| I never wrote that the future is the only aspect of a product but of course it's part of the whole puzzle if your planing in a reasonable way for mid and long term projects. There is no guarantee that it will turn out this way but if you take the whole timeline into account it works in practice very well. |
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| I cant wait to see what you are making considering you have such high standards and obviously with Unity in hand you must be well on your way. |
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| You better not wait for something special because i'm working on 3d projects since quite some time but often they aren't games related. I think it is quite normal that when you have used several engines over some time, you more and more want something which ideally makes a lot of things right instead of introducing the same shortcomings over and over again. And before you also come up with the suggestion of writing your own engine, that mostly doesn't make sense if you are after producing content. Beside of this, even if you haven't used 3d engines extensively on your own, you still could offer valid and reasonable critics like a book critic, who might be good at analysing a book but who can't convince as an author. Dunno, a lot of these things are common sense to me but at least LE stays in the focus this way, right? |
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| Delicious! |
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| LE is a brilliant engine and does show what commitment can achieve, I say good luck to ya Josh your living the dream that we all aspire to get too. The naysayers here are just jealous that you have done what they wanted to do but cant. For me personally I dont have the time to commit to writing a full on engine, atm im writing and improving an OpenGL ES engine (portable easily to OpenGL) this is a slow process but its getting there but its nowhere near LE nor do I aspire to write an engine of that calibre as its already been done (why reinvent the wheel) for me a game that can render System Shock 2 style graphics would be enough. |
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| The naysayers here are just jealous that you have done what they wanted to do but cant. That must be it! It's incomprehensible that someone on Teh Intarweb could hold a different opinion from you, and it must be a conspiracy! |
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| So I'm late to this party - so what's the latest argument in a nutshell? |
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| taumel's working on a top secret 3d project thats not game related and can't show his work... meanwhile, he critiques LE and promotes Unity... just to some it up. Oh.. and LE is awesome! but don't let taumel see you type that... he trolls ;) |
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| Plural _Skully, plural! @Gabriel No matter what you think of LE, i'm glad that people like you are on the Intarweb as well. Otherwise it most probably would be a place only filled with words like trolls, fanboys, naysayers, ... |
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| That must be it! It's incomprehensible that someone on Teh Intarweb could hold a different opinion from you, and it must be a conspiracy! Im not saying that, everyone is entitled to thier own oppinion im just saying that loads of people shoot JoshK down when they havent created an engine at all. I do agree that Unity is impressive BUT I have seen the entire LE engine go from a Blitz3d game(Metal and singularity) to Cartography Shop, then to Character Shop, Leadwerks World editor and finally to what it is now. |
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| I'm sure that this has been covered elsewhere, but I couldn't find the answer (even on the leadwerks website!) Is the leadwerks 3d engine cross platform?? |
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| Is the leadwerks 3d engine cross platform?? It's DLL based, and as such, Windows only I think! Dabz |
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| Is the leadwerks 3d engine cross platform?? Yes, it works on both desktops and laptops LOL I think I saw a note that the next version was going to be cross platform to some degree... don't quote me though... Josh? |
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| Man, thats too bad I'm going to hold out purchasing until full cross platform support is in. On a side note, this should at least be mentioned in the Minimum system requirements on the leadwerks website (currently, it only lists minimum graphics card requirements, which led me to believe that it was cross platform) |
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| Josh, Thanks for posting your work. It is inspiring and beautiful. Don't let the politrics of this site ever stop you from posting. Taumel, Your wrong.... You just don't get it and are stubborn as hell. Me too btw. Guys, more Naughty Alien vibes and shakra stuff please. Moderator on Blitz is Puki all hail |
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| If it's DLL based - can I use it with blitzplus then? (I'd rather not learn a new language ie blitzmax, or c#/c++ etc) |
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| I think you can, as long as you can attach the window context to the graphics, and create a correct userlib. |
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